MORE DEVIANT SCIENCE

Professor John Heslop Harrison was an English botanist with a theory to prove.

He found the Hebridean islands of Scotland’s North West a rich field area for his science. Each year he took his Newcastle University students to botanize those isolated windswept islands; usually to the Isle of Rhum (or Rum, nowadays). It was generally believed that all plant life there would have been totally obliterated during the last ice age that only ended about 10 000 years ago. Lands at high elevations such as ‘ nunataks ’ that poked above the grinding, scouring ice fields would still have been too harsh a climate to sustain plant life. It would take a few thousand years for lichens and low mosses to create a soil that would then be receptive to plants returning from their refuge in the south.

But, as I said, the professor had a theory. He had convinced himself that a number of plants had survived in this locale throughout the ice age. Sure enough, he began to find specimens whose most northern limit today is in the mountain of the Alps. His contention was that since the plants had not returned gradually to the Hebrides in the 10 000 years available, their presence today meant that they had been there all along.

His finds were mostly Sedges which differ from the two ranked leaves of grasses on round stems by having whorls of three and more triangular stems. Whatever turns you on!

It seemed odd to his students and to fellow scientists that he alone was making these discoveries and always solitary specimens. Even if a plant was rare you might ordinarily expect a small community.

It soon became a bit of a joke and Heslop-Harrison (the hyphen was a late addition to the style of his name.) was suspected of growing the plants in his home garden, introducing them to the study site where he could then make his remarkable ‘ discoveries ‘.

 The goings on became so notorious that one wag suggested that when dug up on the island, the plants were found to be growing in John Innes mix. That would be PRO-MIX to North Americans. This was meant as a joke but you can see what was happening to the botanist’s reputation.

FURTHER READING     A RUM AFFAIR    A True Story of Botanical Fraud    by Karl Sabbagh

An update: Science Magazine March 2, 2012 reports similar claims of boreal forest trees in northern Scandinavia persisting through the ice age.
Despite his apparent falsifying of the evidence could Heslop-Harrison's theory of plant survival have some merit? WATCH THIS SPACE.

obliterated during the last ice age that only ended about 10 000 years ago. Lands at high elevations such as ‘ nunataks ’ that poked above the grinding, scouring ice fields would still have been too harsh a climate to sustain plant life. It would take a few thousand years for lichens and low mosses to create a soil that would then be receptive to plants returning from their refuge in the south.

But, as I said, the professor had a theory. He had convinced himself that a number of plants had survived in this locale throughout the ice age. Sure enough, he began to find specimens whose most northern limit today is in the mountain of the Alps. His contention was that since the plants had not returned gradually to the Hebrides in the 10 000 years available, their presence today meant that they had been there all along.

His finds were mostly Sedges which differ from the two ranked leaves of grasses on round stems by having whorls of three and more triangular stems. Whatever turns you on!

It seemed odd to his students and to fellow scientists that he alone was making these discoveries and always solitary specimens. Even if a plant was rare you might ordinarily expect a small community.

It soon became a bit of a joke and Heslop-Harrison (the hyphen was a late addition to the style of his name.) was suspected of growing the plants in his home garden, introducing them to the study site where he could then make his remarkable ‘ discoveries ‘.

 It became so notorious that one wag suggested that when dug up on the island, the plants were found to be growing in John Innes mix. That would be PRO-MIX to North Americans. This was meant as a joke but you can see what was happening to the botanist’s reputation.

FURTHER READING     A RUM AFFAIR    A True Story of Botanical Fraud    by Karl Sabbagh

FROM THE SKEPTIC TANK

ARCTIC LUPINE

BE ALERT as you read; in fact go to High Alert and retain that posture. Check that your ‘bull-shit’ meter is state of the art. Keep your eye out for the latest model.
ASK QUESTIONS.
Who wrote this? What are their credentials? Could the writer have a self interest beyond seeking the truth? Who paid the writer and does the publisher have an agenda, hidden or otherwise?

When was this written? Have you checked the subsequent literature? It could very well be that some or all of the writers’ claims and statements have been refuted and debunked or at least have been questioned but that part of the story just never came to your attention.Could it be that their knowledge and yours is seriously out-dated although the books are still in your library?

In 1964 scientists announced the discovery in Yukon of 20 or so seeds of Arctic Lupine in a lemming burrow that we are told had been buried in frozen silt for over 10 000 years. The contents of the burrow, including a lemming skull, faecal pellets and the seeds, were brought to Ottawa in 1966. In 1967 the seeds were germinated in a greenhouse and produced perfectly normal Lupinus arcticus.
The rewarding work was described and published in Science, the holiest of such journals. By the time that I heard the story it was the mid-seventies, and then I found myself bumping into it repeatedly as by now the amazing story was being told and retold around the world. Not all scientists were convinced.

I am not a scientist merely an interested reader but I did not like the story; it did not pass the smell test. It made my nose wrinkle. Palaeontologist Dick Harington (with one r, I checked.) who discovered the seeds had impressive credentials; and who was I to quarrel with the most esteemed of science journals?

But I could wonder; and ask questions. I wondered what the weather had been like in that part of Yukon 10 000 years ago. Apparently the site had never been glaciated and no doubt there would have been warm periods, and locations near hot-springs, but still; could this flowering plant have ever flourished there?

Harington was fortunate enough to continue his work in Yukon for another forty years and was able to co-author a new paper with Grant Zazula in which the true age of the Lupine seeds was proven and his original error corrected. Seeds remained from the 1964 find, some of which were sent to an expert in radiocarbon- dating at Oxford University. Using greatly improved equipment it was shown that the seeds were modern and in fact only a few years older than the date of their discovery.

GO TO-  BBC Earth News 10 000 year old seeds debunked.

Zazula says that he has collected over 65 species of seeds from ancient rodent nests in the permafrost, some as old as 25 000 years. He has never found ‘ancient’ Arctic Lupine seeds. “Also, Arctic lupine is a  boreal forest understory flower, and I do not think it lived during the ice age with incredibly cold, harsh arctic conditions. The ecology does not fit,” he says.

Now that the age of the Arctic Lupine seeds have proved to be modern; where did they come from? How did they get in that lemming burrow? It is just too dreadful to think that an esteemed scientist would ever place false evidence, to then feign discovery and attempt to fool the world. The alternate explanation is that Professor Harington was the victim of a malicious hoax. The story is not ended yet.
It appears that there is still another shoe waiting to be dropped.

DON'T CRY FOR ARGENTINA

REVIEWING NON-POISONOUS PLANTS

People are impressed by the imprimatur of The Hospital for Sick Children coupled with that of the Toronto Regional Poison Information Centre. Who should know more about poisonous plants than they?
You would think so.

 I am not impressed. I am appalled.

We are told that Holly is ‘poisonous to humans’.
Do they mean the genus Ilex? There are over 900 species of holly and an equal number of hybrids and cultivated varieties. Are we to believe that they are all poisonous? The genus alone is still not good enough. Since Linnaeus in the eighteenth century plant names are binomials. The correct name has two parts, first the genus then the specific epithet.
 I am yet to be convinced that any species of Ilex is toxic; if any are we deserve to know which ones, and to be given their currently accepted scientific name in full. I say currently accepted names as right at this moment there are teams of taxonomists busily changing many names based on new knowledge that shows a plants proper place in the botanical family tree.

 Recently I wrote about the confusion over the use of Snake Berry as a common name when presumably they meant Actea rubra; now I must tell you that all your beautiful late summer highly fragrant Cimicifugas are now to be known as Actea. No doubt they will soon be added to the roster of poisonous plants.  But I digress.

Back to Holly, the genus Ilex. How, you might wonder did they ever get their bad reputation? Where do these stories come from? Perhaps they had heard of the ‘black drink’ that native Americans used to make themselves vomit as a cleansing ritual before going into battle or as a religious rite. This was an extra strong infusion using the leaves of Ilex vomitoria (good name) the only North American plant that I know of that has a caffeine content. Early European settlers did not care much for the throwing up part so they enjoyed a much milder brew that they called Yaupon tea.

 The caffeine beverage of choice in Argentina and Uruguay is Yerba Maté that uses the leaves of Ilex paraguariensis that is drunk with much ceremony through a silver straw that has a strainer on the wet end. They drink lots of it and don’t spew a drop.

SEE ALSO Blogspot QUACK QUACK August 3, 2011

 Yerba Maté is served in a gourd-inspired bowl and drunk through a bombilla.

POISON PENMANSHIP

POISON: A substance that causes death or serious injury to a living organism, especially when this happens quickly from a relatively small dose; it does not discriminate and its effects should apply equally to all.

By this definition, an allergen is not a poison, since it does not usually kill; it affects some but not others.

Poison Ivy is not poisonous and should more properly be Skin-Rash Ivy. About 15% of people are immune to its dangers. This makes the plant a very common hazard with 85% as potential victims. In most other allergic encounters with plant parts, the numbers are beyond the decimal point.

Some sufferers are so outraged and believing that since it happened to them, that it will happen to others, they alert the whole tribe. In fact they might only be one of a very sensitive few; perhaps uniquely so. One person whose complaint I found on the Internet was so angry at their allergic reaction to Foxglove (they got hives) that they demanded that it should be treated like smallpox and be eradicated from the planet.

People new to gardening must be quite concerned to see so many popular plants readily available at garden centres although they are “known to be poisonous to humans’. With some thought they come to realize that they cannot be all that poisonous or they would not continue to be sold. Obviously the plants have already passed through many hands, from the growers and propagators to greenhouse workers who prune, deadhead and cut back in daily close encounters. They quite rightly ignore the doomsayers and dodge the falling sky.
It has been pointed out to me that I do not find any poisonous plants among the 72 names as given in ‘Information for Families-Plant Safety’ and I do not define ‘poison’. Note that the Hospital does not offer a definition either and no information. Their intent seems to be to scare people into sticking to our familiar vegetables and not to eat garden ornamentals. I could endorse that thought, I suppose.
 I did not give them all a clean bill of health. Where I believed that there might be cause for concern I have tried to explain and to reassure that in normal usage any toxic content can be safely disregarded.
 In trying to inform I have done a great deal more than this poor effort from Sick Kids’.
Are there any poisonous plants on the list? Perhaps a couple that might qualify but how are families to know which ones out of this miscellany? I have no intention to add to a list derived from garbled folklore or the problems that farmers must contend with in animal husbandry nor when used as self-medication for self-diagnosed ailments.
I am outraged to see in a publication addressed to families with a home garden, a warning about the dangerous potential of Delphiniums and Larkspur based on some awareness that a couple of weedy types have proven harmful to grazing cattle in some western States. There are 250 species of Delphiniums including Larkspurs and as many or more cultivated varieties. They are not poisonous to humans, not even the few that can harm animals. We are not cattle. We do not consume by the bushel nor graze by the acre.

STAR OF BETHLEHEM

 
REVIEWING NON POISONOUS PLANTS

The Hospital for Sick Children tell us that Star of Bethlehem is 'known to be poisonous to humans'.
Campanula isophyla.The white form is pictured above.
  Eucharis x grandiflora (See the white lily at the bottom of the page.)
Ornithogalum thyrsoides (below)                                                 .

CHOOSE YOUR POISON
Three different plants that are all called
                           Star of Bethlehem.
They all have other common names which is not unusual. The Campanula is a Trailing or Italian Bellflower and also comes in blue.
The Eucharis is a natural hybrid with and sometimes called Amazon Lily. It grows from a bulb.
Ornithogalum has a rather quaint name that is fun to pronounce: Chincherincheree. It is another bulb, but from South Africa and very important as a cut flower much used in white-themed bridal bouquets. The individual flowers are in a compact truss, deliciously fragrant and very long lasting. I have not thought about Chincherincheree for years but if memory serves I do recall that the flowers close at night.
  
   So which Star of Bethlehem is deemed to be toxic? No, I am not giving out prizes. Just answers. It is the Chincherincheree and I am told that it is strong medicine that can violently affect the heart. Do remember that you are most unlikely to find the bulb and will have a hard time wresting the flowers away from the young lady that catches the brides well-aimed throw. We really don't need so many of lifes' pleasures spoiled quite needlessly by hyper-anxious know- it -alls.
   Thanks to air-freight this beautiful flower is shipped to florists every day,
by the thousands, with never an untoward incident.

WHAT SNAKE BERRY ?

REVIEWING NON-POISONOUS PLANTS

  Snake Berry in Toronto’s Sick Children’s list of poisonous plants meant nothing to me.

 I’ve asked other plantsmen but they don’t seem to know the term either. When I ran it through the Google search engine it was identified as Actea rubra. News to me. I know the plant very well but I know it as Red Baneberry. That is the problem with common names. Sometimes they are only locally common.

 Lots of plants have a number of common names and on occasion one common name is used for a few quite different plants.

  The A.M.A. Handbook gives Snake Berry as yet one more name for Solanum dulcamara, otherwise known as Bittersweet Nightshade which, if I had my way would be Climbing Tomato. On doing some more checking I do see that they list Actea rubra as Snakeberry, one word not two.

 Are you following me? Snakeberry is Actea and Snake Berry is Solanum.

   I trust that all this squabbling over names does not bring lids to your eyes; it is not trivial. As parents are being told that these plants are poisonous it would be very helpful to have their scientific names.

   Once we have established which plants we are talking about we can proceed to the matter of whether they are toxic. When you subject Red Baneberry, (Actea rubra) to chemical analysis it will show a high concentration of oxalic acid as we also find in rhubarb leaves and in lesser quantities, in many vegetables such as spinach. The word‘poison’is highly inappropriate. It takes excessive amounts or the accumulative effects of long-term usage to affect your health. The body handles oxalic acid by combing it with calcium to form calcium oxalate crystals which are processed by the kidneys and excreted in urine. Continued usage could result in calcium deficiency or to kidney stones

   The bright red fruit of Actea rubra will be attractive to an exploring child who, quite naturally will want to discover if they are sweet and juicy. They will be disappointed and just as naturally will spit them out. Children, as I am sure you know, are fussy eaters with all their sensitive taste buds still intact. They do not readily poison themselves.

 If anyone ever tells you they were killed by Snake Berry: do not believe them.

RHUBARB FOOL

REVIEWING NON-POISONOUSPLANTS

When I asked if it was alright to put horse manure on my rhubarb an old gardener said that would be fine but that personally he preferred custard.
 His jocular answer was better than the advice offered by Toronto’s Sick Kids’ Hospital as they warn us that rhubarbs’ large leaves are ‘known to be poisonous to humans.’

   Together with the Ontario Regional Poison Information Centre they publish an advisory called Information for Families – Plant Safety which is notable for its’ lack of information. Families are on their own.

   Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid that can combine with calcium to form painful kidney stones; but so do the leaves of spinach, Swiss chard, beetroot tops and a number of other popular food items such as peas and potatoes. Susceptible types will be much more likely to accrete stones in the kidney or bladder from a diet of spinach than from the unappealing greens of rhubarb.

Speaking for myself alone I must say that rhubarb is not high on my list of favourites. The closest I get is the occasional purchase of a strawberry & rhubarb pie; even then I find that it still calls for a custard topping. Nothing appeals from the rhubarb leaves.

 Anyway, poison is hardly the right word. It takes a steady diet of an offending food item consumed over years before it would result in kidney stones. And when it does, would you call it a poison?

   A hundred years ago during the First World War a government agency in Britain exhorted the people to be mindful of food shortages and “that children were starving in Belgium.” As example it was suggested that those who liked and used rhubarb should not discard the leaves as was the usual practice but to use them too as a vegetable. This provoked strenuous complaints from many who knew its’ reputation as a cause of kidney stones or otherwise had learned that it was deleterious or even poisonous. Once being taken to task for their bad advice they responded by issuing corrections which in fact greatly exaggerated the plants’ dangers as they sought to undo any harm that they had caused. These stories are still echoing today. You would think that after one hundred years we could get the story right. Obviously we cannot look to Sick Kids’ Hospital for solid science and sensible instruction. They apparently know little and care even less.

Recipes for RHUBARB FOOL at www.canadianliving.com